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Executives have historically been taught to lead from the head, not the heart—but in times of uncertainty, C-suiters in touch with their feelings might have the upper hand.
Emotional intelligence is becoming more and more important when it comes to judging executives, according to a new report from LinkedIn. Using data from over one billion LinkedIn users, the study narrowed in on the profiles of executives from S&P 500 businesses as well as venture-backed U.S. “unicorn” companies, defined as private startups with a market valuation of over $1 billion. Researchers found there has been a 31% increase in these C-suite leaders featuring soft skills on their pages since 2018. The top five most popular include conducting effective presentations, strategic thinking, communication, strategic vision, and conflict resolution.
But why the shift to advertising softer skills on a professional forum? The short answer is AI, Aneesh Raman, the chief economic opportunity officer at LinkedIn, tells Fortune in a video interview. He says that the advanced technology has moved the working world into a new era, in which robots will shoulder more and more intellectual labor, and humans will take on the emotional work.
“These people skills are going to become more and more core to not just how someone becomes an executive, but the work of executives: Mobilizing teams, and building a company that is human-centric,” he says.
Raman points to five key pillars of emotional intelligence skills that he says businesses are looking for in leadership: curiosity, compassion, courage, communication, and creativity. But while hard skills and intellectual capability are measured in all kinds of ways—from standardized tests, to diplomas, or certificates—doing that with soft skills isn’t as straightforward.
“Measuring these people skills is the next frontier in building a skills-first labor market,” Raman says. He points out that if a worker lacked a certain technical ability, they could attend a bootcamp or course to hone that capability. “We now have to do that with people skills, and we’re still in the very early days,” he says.
Emma Burleigh
emma.burleigh@fortune.com
